EnglishAl,
At the risk of being completely wrong again... I don't agree with your last post. Lift isn't necessarilly greatest just before the stall, but
coefficient of lift is greatest. If you enter the stall by reducing power and attempting to maintain altitude, the lift will be equal to the weight just prior to the stall, as for straight+level. If you enter the stall by pulling back very sharply from cruise speed, then yes, lift might be very high.
Also, during the stall, the wing still produces lift - it just can't produce as much. If there was no lift at all, a power off stall would effectively be a 0g dive, and you'd be weightless.
I've already demonstrated that this is an area in which I don't know as much as I should, though - so I'll leave it for others to either expand on my points, or correct them!
FFF
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